Article by Sherin Dev; Join me in Twitter / Facebook
Being an insurance advisor is not a big task. Each Business Development Manager has target to appoint number of advisors under him. If you want to be one, you can approach him directly. But, after being an advisor, not take this profession as a license to cheat people for selfish gains. Customers should be aware to identify the required qualities of a good insurance advisor to avoid traps. Below are some good qualities a perfect advisor should have.
1. Honesty – Honesty is the most important quality among others. An advisor should be able to present the advantages and disadvantages of a product that he is selling. He should make the customer aware about the profit and possible impacts of the product for short term and long term. The naked truth is, most of the advisors are just being an advisor with only motive to get commission and they will use every possible and ugly method to trap the customer. In a plain word, it is known as “cheating”
2. Knowledge – An advisor should have very good knowledge about the product he is selling as well as the products available in the market in it kind. He should be able to undertake comparative study between various products from other companies falling under the same category. This knowledge leads him to identify features of each available product as well as enable him to give proper advice to customers to select a better one.
3. Passion – An insurance advisor should be passionate to his profession. As I said in the previous session, passion to the profession is a must to build honesty to job. Nobody in this world can reach to success with any field were to he doesn’t have any passion. This quality enables one to dig maximum into a product to identify the qualities and errors.
4. Business Ethics – It is a requirement to being an Insurance agent; he should read, study and pass the qualifying exam. In his manual, business ethics has a major session to learn. By the sake of god, not many people sticking into business ethics. If an advisor has business ethics, he will never hide the disadvantages of a product from customer to whom he meet. An advisor, who doesn’t have any ethics, will use all possible methods to polish the product disadvantages to sell the same for his personal gains.
5. Customer focused – This is one of the most required qualities to an Insurance Advisor. He should be able to understand the customer requirements well to advise him a proper product. If an advisor is not able to do so, better he goes and looks another profession where he can perform well. That is better than getting curse in the future.
6. Financial Planning Skills – A good insurance advisor should have good financial planning skills. Without same, he is just like any ordinary person, will not be able to identify the exact requirements of a customer to advise correct product for him. A must have requirement of an advisor; he/she should be a good financial planner. Through this quality, he can plan finance for a customer and can lead him to correct products.
7. Multi product awareness – A good Insurance advisor should have very good understanding about the products that he has in his basket as well as other necessary products that required building a better portfolio for customer. Insurance is not only the product one can use to build a financial portfolio. There are various products required to balance the financial portfolio of the customer. With less knowledge about any product other than what he is selling, I can’t say he is a good Insurance Advisor. But, he is a dumb advisor and customer should avoid such beasts.
8. Follow up skills – Selling an insurance product doesn’t fulfill the job of an Advisor. He should keep track of each customer and should be able to advise him time to time to leverage maximum benefits from his investments. He should keep all the required information’s about the customer and the product that he bought through him. This information will be useful to track the changes in the future as well as contact the customer if there is any action required by him.
9. Self update – an advisor should spend enough time to update his product skills as well as other products were he should have enough skills when dealing with customers. He should be aware about the market changes and innovations happening in his area of service as well as the features of new products that launching in the market.
And finally, he should be a good listener with required people management skills.
There are various qualities also required by an advisor. This can be personal qualities, good character etc. But, above mentioned are the must have qualities for an advisor. Customer can immediately identify and measure and advisor if using some common sense. If found a wrong guy, they should avoid him at any cost.Hope this article will be helpful to all those planning to meet insurance advisor as well as the people who is already an advisor.Please critique and comment freely! If there is a step I missed or that you think needs to be tacked onto the end, please let me know and I’ll add it.